Brother

Unleashing a savage avalanche of escalating violence that far outstrips any modern-day American precursor in terms of pure unblinking brutality, Takeshi ‘Beat’ Kitano’s first US-filmed, English-language outing is also one of the most hair-raising and hard-hitting mob thrillers you will ever have occasion to witness.

Takeshi’s previous seven Japanese-made works – most notably Violent Cop and Hana-Bi – have earned him considerable acclaim in occidental circles and made him a household name at home, but hindsight now shows all of them to have been merely priming the audience for what was to come.

Replete with forced disembowellings, forced finger-slashings and more gunfire free-for-alls than anything Sam Peckinpah ever served up, Brother is definitely too harsh and unforgiving to appeal to all tastes, but as a pure assault on the blood pressure, it’s safe to say you’ve rarely seen anything like it.

Takeshi plays Yamamoto, an exiled yakuza who arrives in LA in search of his half-brother, armed with no English-language skills but endless reserves of chutzpah. Laconic, monosyllabic, and truly steel-balled, Yamamoto establishes early on that he isn’t inclined to take shit from anyone: his first action is to accidentally bump into a large, aggressive black gentleman (Epps), causing the latter’s expensive bottle of wine to smash on the ground. When he demands recompense, Yamamoto casually picks up the smashed bottle and refurbishes the guy’s face.

This sets the tone for a two-hour orgy of blood-curdling (but never random) violence. Yamamoto tracks down his brother – a drug-dealer on the make – who introduces him to his homies, who happen to include what’s left of the guy he had a run-in with.

What follows is an epic, sustained bout of all-out turf warfare between a Chicano gang and the brothers’ posse, led with supreme efficiency and ruthlessness by the inscrutable (sorry, but the stereotype really applies) Yamamoto, effortlessly settling back into the lifestyle he thought he’s left behind. It’s when they incur the wrath of the Mafia that things become truly precarious for our oriental mobsters, but they’re not the type to blink first...

Elegant, stately and lyrical, Takeshi’s distinctive directorial style doesn’t comfortably invite comparisons with any Western contemporary, but devotees of Scorsese and Tarantino should lap up Brother’s gleeful pile-up of shootings and double-crossings, executed with such casual relish that even very hardened viewers will have cause to flinch several times. Though certainly excessive, the blood-letting is never gratuitous as such: a typically Japanese stress on the themes of loyalty, honour and brotherhood is present throughout, and almost all the savagery meted out is in response to some violation of these codes.

On occasion, there are times when the viewer is left begging a little respite from all the carnage, and none is forthcoming: the degree to which you enjoy Brother will depend largely on your strength of stomach. Still, it is one ferocious sharp-fanged beast of a thriller, and not likely to disappear in a hurry from the minds of any who see it. Take the risk.